Out On the Town

31 Jan

Today I went on my first real outing with Lucy, without Hubs!  I met up for lunch at the Grove with a fabulous fellow mama who I met on a Facebook group for mamas who all went to our same college, and her beautiful daughter who’s a few months older than Lucy.  When we got to talking today, we realized that we had known each other a little bit in college too through a volunteer project at a local school.

I admit I was nervous this morning getting ready to leave the house.  I was super paranoid about whether I had everything I needed in the diaper bag (which I checked about 5 times — mind you, I was only out of the house for about 2 1/2 hours!) and I get a bit skittish driving with Lucy.  On top of that I felt a little like I was going on a blind date (will she like me?!)

Image

Lucy getting ready for our outing

Luckily, all my worries were unfounded and we had a lovely time.  I also learned a couple of great tips:  1) There is an awesome “family room” at the Grove on the 1st level of the parking structure, complete with an actual padded changing table!  (Thank goodness because the restaurant had nothing resembling a changing table…)  2)  When Lucy starts melting down because she’s tired, she will stop fussing and zonk out when placed back in her stroller and rolled back and forth in place for about 5 minutes.  It was an amusing meal because both of us mamas were doing one-handed eating while taking care of our little ones.  How quickly we adapt!

Overall, today was a complete success!  Next Monday is my first Mommy & me class, and I’m looking forward to it and also glad that I got over the hump of going out with Lucy today.  Now she is zonked out after all the excitement!

Tags: , , ,

Motherhood with a side of guilt (Part II)

29 Jan

I sent a link to my blog to one of my high school friends whose wife is pregnant.  He wrote back half-jokingly that he might have to stop reading my blog after his baby is born if all I’m going to talking about is what an easy baby Lucy is.  Now, I don’t think that’s what the blog is about so far, but just in case, I feel compelled to clarify that I’m not just going to be writing about puppies and rainbows and adorable pictures of Lucy.   (Okay, yes, so I will be posting lots of adorable pictures of Lucy–can you blame me??)

Image

Token cute Lucy photo

Image

Mini-meltdown — no one is immune!

I was in a bit of a funk earlier today. I haven’t been sleeping well the last few nights, so I’m generally exhausted. Then I had the boring breakfast meeting I already wrote about. The creative juices just haven’t been flowing today like they were earlier this week. And I haven’t even have the energy today to focus on Lucy as much as I would like. This, in turn, makes me feel guilty (yes, this again). I am blessed to have a long maternity leave with my baby, who I love to pieces. Shouldn’t I be able to muster the energy to spend all day talking to her, playing with her, and singing to her? She certainly deserves that. But sometimes, all I can do is lay her on her activity mat, jingle the dangling birds for her, and do some halfhearted baby talk while I drink my tea/check my email/etc.  Today when Lucy fell asleep in her swing I fell asleep on the couch, and it was all I could do to motivate for our daily neighborhood walk (but I did — this is why I put that resolution on the blog, to hold me accountable!)  It was just one of those days.

This made me think of a great article I read on Huffington Post a couple of weeks ago by Amy Morrison (of Pregnant Chicken, see my blogroll)- “Why You’re Never Failing as a Mother.”  Basically, the article says, the standard for parenting used to be much lower. As long as babies were fed, clothed, and bathed, that was enough:

As for the past generations that like to tell you that they raised six kids on their own and did it without a washing machine? Well, sort of. Keep in mind child rearing was viewed pretty differently not that long ago and you could stick a toddler on the front lawn with just the dog watching and nobody would bat an eye at it — I used to walk to the store in my bare feet to buy my father’s cigarettes when I was a kid. 

Now, Morrison says, we are expected to teach our children sign language and Cantonese, cook organic baby food, go to Mommy & me, etc. on top of all the basic baby care tasks.  Not that I think we shouldn’t want to teach and interact with our children as much as we can – but I also agree with her that if some days are better than others in that department, it doesn’t mean that we’re failing as mamas.

This was just what I needed to remind myself of today.  And tomorrow is a new day.

Tags: , , ,

My Tiny Muse

27 Jan

 

photo-24

Those of you following my blog over the past couple of weeks are probably wondering by now what the heck is going on.  I started off doing a basic mama blog and now I’m posting poetry and writing about writing and… ????  I guess the best way I can explain it is like this:

When I was younger (starting in elementary school) I wrote all the time — poetry, short stories, journaling, you name it.  My parents love to tell me (and everyone else) that we’d be in the car and I’d ask them for a piece of paper (which would sometimes have to be a brown paper bag) because I’d “feel a poem coming on.”

At some point, around the time I left for college, I mostly stopped.  I would occasionally still feel inspired to pen a poem or a journal entry — in particular, I remember journaling in Spanish during my semester in Madrid — but for the most part I was focused on other things.  (Studying?  Or, more likely, guys and going to parties?  Sigh.)  Then I became a lawyer and I think my lawyer brain just took over my creative brain.  I may have still been using the creative juices somewhat for lawyering, but there wasn’t much energy left to apply them elsewhere.

But now, post-Lucy, I find myself struck with an overwhelming inspiration to write (yes, even poetry!) that I haven’t felt since high school.  I think part of it is being free from school and work and other things that might usually sap my energy and my attention.  And I think part of it is that mamahood is such a hugely intense, emotional experience that in some ways mirrors being younger, when everything is felt so deeply and on such a grand scale.  Drew Barrymore had a daughter, Olive, a couple of months before Lucy was born, and when interviewed she’s said that she feels like she has a crush on her daughter, butterflies and everything.  (I really think Lucy and Olive could be BFFs if only I could arrange a playdate…)  I totally identify with that.  The way I feel about Lucy (and, I’m sure, the way most mamas feel about their babies) is so raw and makes me feel so vulnerable that it’s like being sixteen all over again, when I was constantly experiencing the highs and lows of (what I thought at the time was) love and heartbreak, before I developed a thicker skin.  Maybe it just took my skin getting a little thinner again to get here.

In any event, I recognize that this blog hasn’t quite found its voice or its tone, and it will probably continue to be all over the place.  But I hope that you’ll stick around for the ride!

Tags: , , , , ,

At the Beginning

27 Jan

Before she had Los Angeles, or even the thought

Of places beyond the next town

There was still the urgency of words and summer nights where

Every moment so many things seemed on the verge of

Happening.

There were drives down Belt Line to feel the rush of travel without distance.

Sometimes I think that girl

Who understood the magic of language and not the weight of adult concerns

Already knew, without knowing, who she was going to be.

Tags: , ,

Date Night

26 Jan

Remember that one time that your shoulder was covered in your baby’s spit-up and you’d been up at 1 am and 5 am and hadn’t gotten a chance to shower, and then your spouse came home from work and you got all dressed up and shared a romantic candlelight gourmet dinner with wine in front of the fireplace?

HA!  HA!  Yeah, me either.  (The last part anyway.)  My relationship with Hubs has actually been deepened and strengthened by the arrival of Lucy.  We adore her so much and even though we were definitely in love before Lucy, I think we have a whole new level of love and respect for each other now.  I am also making a concerted effort to avoid getting snippy with Hubs even when sleep deprivation might otherwise encourage me to do so, so we are bickering much less and I feel like we’ve been working as a very good team.

However, while Lucy has added to our relationship in the love department, I can’t exactly say the same about the romance department.  (Conversations about dirty diapers?  Hot!)  As I wrote earlier, for a long time I was hesitant to be without Lucy very often, even when she’s in the capable hands of her Nana and Papa.  When we went out to Hubs’ holiday party, I was checking my phone obsessively and we only lasted a couple of hours before we raced home to check on her.  We have a great deal of fun together at home with Lucy, but it does make for a lot of interrupted conversations and meals.  This week I decided I was finally ready to reinstate our weekly Friday night date night.  And I found myself getting genuinely excited about an adult night out.

Last night rolled around and I was happy to find I was still excited.  I got myself dolled up (ok, put a cute skirt and boots on over my leggings, some mascara and a ponytail — hey, it’s something, don’t judge!), we kissed Lucy goodbye and headed out.

Right now it’s Restaurant Week in L.A., so we went to Cliff’s Edge in Silverlake, which we’d been wanting to try for some time.  We had a very nice meal, complete with wine and dessert, and the best part was that we got to eat the whole meal at a leisurely pace without having to juggle Lucy in one arm at the coffee table or pop up to get a bottle or replace a fallen binky.  (To our credit, I think we even made it about 20-30 minutes before we started talking about Lucy.  Not too shabby — baby steps, people!)

And then when we got home, we got to spend some more time with Lucy.

photo-23

Ok, I cheated — this photo was taken this morning, but I couldn’t resist.

I’m pretty sure this is what they call a win-win.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Parenting Fail Of the Day (Chapter 1)

24 Jan

So I’m working on another more substantive post, but first I just had to share this anecdote, even though it makes me look like kind of a total moron.

Lucy woke up in a great mood, I fed her and we had our morning “conversation.”  (She has started doing all sorts of awesome “ahs” and “goos,”  Sometimes she even strings them together into what sounds like a complete sentence!)  Anyway, then we moved to the nursery for some play time on her activity mat.  Lucy loves being on her back and looking up at the dangling animals.  Tummy time, not as much.  I’m supposed to be putting her on her tummy at least twice a day but it doesn’t always happen.  So I decided that I may as well try it when she’s in a good mood and hope for the best.

What I didn’t think about — hello, Captain Obvious — was how little time had elapsed since her meal.

Lucy was doing a great job, lifting her head off the mat and not fussing, and I was laying next to her rubbing her back, when — BLECH! — out came the biggest spit up I have ever seen onto the activity mat.  Then, before I could stop her, Lucy dropped her face smack into the middle of the giant spit-up puddle.

I immediately turned Lucy onto her back and was horrified.  I didn’t stop to take a photo because I was in too much of a hurry to clean her up, but let me just say the scene resembled Lucy having just taken a cream pie to the face.  There was spit-up all over her cheeks, nose, eyelids and eyelashes!  Luckily babies can be surprisingly more resilient than adults, because Lucy barely seemed to notice.  (You can bet that if I faceplanted into my own vomit you would see some serious tears.)

Evidence of Lucy’s nonchalance: this photo was taken right after I cleaned her up.

photo-22

Approximately 3 minutes post-incident

I, on the other hand, remain somewhat traumatized.  I won’t be making that mistake again!

Tags: , , , ,

Motherhood, with a side of guilt

22 Jan

People always joke about growing up with “Jewish guilt” or “Catholic guilt.”  I’m technically Jewish, since my mom is culturally Jewish and my ancestors on my mom’s side were all Russian / Eastern European Jews, but my mom wasn’t raised religiously and neither was I.  We grew up celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah just because of their proximity to each other (it wasn’t until watching The OC that I realized “Christmukkah” was more common than I thought) but never went to synagogue, had Passover seder, or observed the high holidays.  (Nor did we go to Christian church, though I ventured with certain friends from time to time — including to Mormon church, much to my parents’ dismay.)  So my mom was not the stereotypical Jewish mom and I didn’t experience the stereotypical Jewish guilt.

That being the case, I’ve been a bit shell-shocked by the amount of guilt that comes along with being a parent.  This begins even before the baby is born and I imagine continues indefinitely.  As a mom, at every stage of Lucy’s life I will be presented with a dizzying amount of choices that could have a real impact on her life and her future.  The first guilt-inducing issue, which for some people seems more controversial than gun control or the Middle East peace process, is feeding: namely, whether to breastfeed or bottle-feed.

If you’re a parent, you’re well aware that the current medical/cultural opinion is that “breast is best.”  I heard or read this refrain many times during my pregnancy and I fully intended to breastfeed exclusively.  When my OB’s office offered me a free tub of formula, I turned my nose up at it and said “No thanks, I’m breastfeeding.”  Hubs and I attended a breastfeeding class at the hospital and became well-versed at how to properly position the baby doll at the breast and the mechanics of latching.  We watched an extremely cheesy video picturing a beautiful blond woman in front of a tropical setting, touting the magic of nursing.  Even though I stocked up (and perhaps overstocked) on baby items, I didn’t think about buying a breast pump because I figured I wouldn’t need it till much closer to the end of my maternity leave.  And — I’m ashamed to admit — I was secretly kind of judgy about people who didn’t breastfeed.

Fast forward to the hospital.  I’m in bed, in pain from delivery with a giant ice pack on my hoo-ha, and every few hours the nurses and/or lactation consultants come in and try to help me nurse Lucy, which basically consists of them manhandling and squeezing my boobs and trying to force them into Lucy’s screaming mouth.  Where was the beautiful blond woman, the tropical locale and the peaceful, angelic infant?  Still, I was determined to make it work.  At that point, my milk had not yet come in, which I assumed was the problem.

photo-17

Beautiful Lucy taking a rest from nursing attempts in the hospital.

But at home, things didn’t get better.  Lucy lost too much weight in the first few days, so the pediatrician told us to give her an ounce of formula as a supplement at each feeding.  I had also been told by the lactation consultant at the hospital to pump with each feeding.  And we were supposed to feed Lucy every three hours (counted from the beginning of the prior feeding).  As you may imagine, between trying to nurse, feeding her the formula, pumping and feeding her the pumped milk — all every three hours — we were basically constantly feeding her.  And whenever I would try to nurse, Lucy would either not latch at all; scream and cry; or else latch on and fall asleep, rendering it near impossible for me to de-latch.  We could spend hours like this, all night, and I came to realize that my milk supply was just too low, notwithstanding all my pumping, so basically I had turned into a giant human binky.  (I hadn’t thought to give Lucy a real binky, since we were told that could cause nipple confusion.)

After two weeks of both Lucy and I being in tears over the feeding situation, I finally met with a lactation consultant.  She informed me that Lucy has a “high palate” and she said that nursing would be a real challenge, though she thought I could do it.  But after trying repeatedly for a few more days and experiencing lots of screaming, crying, and failed latching, I gave up.

Now, I feed Lucy a combination of pumped milk and formula, about 50-50.  In any given day, I pump about 10-15 ounces of milk and she drinks between 20-25.   The first few days after I stopped nursing, I was depressed about it.  It’s hard to have your heart set on the way something’s going to be and not have it work out, and I was feeling guilty about not being able to exclusively breastfeed.  But as the days went on, I have come to mostly like our arrangement.  The moment we switched to just bottle-feeding her, feeding Lucy became such a pleasure.  Hubs is able to feed her and he enjoys the bonding time with her.  My parents and Hubs’ parents can also take turns feeding her when they’re here.  Lucy is a great little eater and she’s healthy and gaining weight well.  And a side perk is that selfishly, it gives me freedom to go out and do things without worrying about always needing to get back super quickly for Lucy’s feedings.

I didn’t really realize it till I experienced it, but a LOT of people have trouble with breastfeeding.  And a lot of people feel like they are judged when they formula feed.  Luckily, no one has ever said anything overtly judgy to me, but people do ask questions with implied judgment (like “how’s nursing going?  Are you pumping?” etc.)   Right now I’m reading a book called Bottled Up: How The Way We Feed Babies Has Come to Define Motherhood, and Why it Shouldn’t.  It’s “part memoir, part popular science, and part social commentary,” and very insightful about the history of “Breast is Best” and womens’ experiences.  It is not an anti-breastfeeding book, as the author makes clear.  But it sheds light on something that is a common issue and which hadn’t been written about in this way before.

The author of this book also has a website called Fearless Formula Feeder.  I can’t say I’m yet “fearless” about anything involving motherhood, including formula feeding.  I do still wish that I could feed Lucy only breast milk.  But I’m trying to work on at least not giving myself a guilt trip about it.  There are enough people out there judging…I don’t need to be one of them.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Milestones

18 Jan

First, a warning: Loving Lucy will be taking a brief hiatus over the next few days, as Lucy’s Grandma and Grandpap (Hubs’ parents) are visiting from Virginia.  (They are en route from LAX as I write this!)  I will try to catch up with some extra posts next week.

Image

What are you doing?

And I know I didn’t post yesterday either.  We were busy taking Lucy to the doctor for her 2 month checkup.  She got a clean bill of health and confirmed what we already knew: our daughter is a string bean!  10 lbs and 24 inches puts her in the 18th percentile for weight and the 98th percentile for height.

I expected Lucy’s shots to be really traumatizing, but it wasn’t as bad as I feared.  I admit I got a little freaked out when I saw the needles (I hate needles so much that I went without an epidural, after all!) but Lucy was a real trooper.  She cried hard for a few minutes, which was hard to watch — I hadn’t seen her cry real actual tears before!  But then she settled down, slept all the way home, and was totally fine!  No extra fussing, no fever, and no need for infant Tylenol.  Much better sport than her mama.  I’m impressed!

The Old Me

15 Jan

Bob Porter: “Looks like you’ve been missing a lot of work lately.”

Peter Gibbons: “I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bob.”  

– Office Space 

A few months before Lucy was born, at the prodding of my law firm’s marketing director, I joined a formal networking group.  It meets in Westwood the third Tuesday of every month at 7:30 a.m., and is comprised of lawyers, CPAs, real estate agents, insurance brokers…basically anyone who provides a service.  The point of the group is to build relationships with the other members for the purpose of eventually referring business.

When I was first approached by my marketing director, I was reluctant, to say the least, to check this group out.  It’s part of a larger networking organization of which many partners in my firm are members, and it just seemed overly formal, overly blatant about getting business referrals, and just generally not my cup of tea.  (I love people, but I hate when it feels like schmoozing.)  So for many months, through the spring and summer, I put off attending a meeting.

Finally, in late summer, I sucked it up and drove out to Westwood in the early morning.  I was happily surprised that not only does the group include other young people and several other women, but everyone was extremely warm and welcoming.  Then I faced a quandary — did it make sense to join a group knowing that in a few months I’d be having Lucy and begin a 6-month maternity leave?  But I figured (not knowing whether this was overly optimistic) that this would be a good way to retain some small connection to the working world during my leave.

Understandably, I missed the November and December meetings.  The November meeting was just three days after Lucy was born, and even by the December meeting (at about the 1-month mark) I just wasn’t in the frame of mind to be donning business attire and leaving the house in the morning.  I wasn’t sure I was going to attend this month’s meeting either, but when I received an email from the group leader that attendance at this particular meeting was “strongly encouraged,” I decided to bite the bullet.  I arranged for my mom to come over at 8 am to be with Lucy when Hubs went to work.

Then this morning, I almost bailed.  Last night was not the easiest with the little bean, and I woke up exhausted.  I had planned to hop in the shower no later than 5:45, but I ended up feeding Lucy at 5:30 (Hubs had handled the 2:30 a.m. feeding and I didn’t want to break his deep sleep), so I ran out of time.  The best I could do was comb my hair into a bun, and I looked and felt like a disaster.  Still, I put on a black pantsuit (yay for being able to button the jacket again!), some black heels that I haven’t worn in months, and hit the road.  On the way I thought to myself, “It’s not too late to go home and try to get some more sleep…”

But as it turns out, going to this meeting was the best thing I could have done for myself today.  I wouldn’t have expected this since I don’t even know the people in the group that well, but today I felt more like “myself” than I have since Lucy was born.  I have become so hyper-focused on Lucy and on mamahood that I really needed that reminder that I have a career and a life outside of Lucy, too.  I studied and worked hard to become a lawyer and I get satisfaction from it.  So while there are certain things about my job I don’t love (billable hours…) there are things I do love (the intellectual challenge, the camaraderie, the problem solving).

Before Lucy I always thought I would want to continue working outside the home, even if I had a choice not to.  Then Lucy came along and I fell so in love with her that I thought maybe I would really want to be a SAHM if I could.  But now I’m realizing my first instinct was right.  I love Lucy, and I love being a mom, but I’m not cut out for staying at home full-time.  Along with my feeling of relaxation, I’ve also been feeling a bit like my brain is turning to mush, and today helped!  Of course, attending one morning meeting is quite different than a full-time job, and I know I will have a tough adjustment once I do return to work.  But it is nice to have a way to gradually ease back into that world before I have to jump back into all the deadlines and stresses that go along with it.

When I came home, I shared my thoughts with my mom, who agreed that it’s important for me to maintain my career.  Always wise, she said the following:

“It may be very hard to think about, but although Lucy is the most important person in your life, you won’t be the most important person in her life.  And that’s how it should be.”

I apparently taught my mom that lesson early on.  At the tender age of 8, as she loves to recount, I wrote her a Mother’s Day card with the sentimental note, “Just think — only 10 more years.”  In other words, I was envisioning my departure from the house before I had even left elementary school!  It’s so hard to imagine when she is just a baby, but Lucy may very well be the same way, and I need to be able to laugh about it.  I think that will be much easier to do if I hold on, to some degree, to the “old me.”

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Invasion of the Body-Snatchers

14 Jan

Note:  I started writing this a few days ago but was interrupted, and then I didn’t want to work on it over my birthday weekend because it’s not the most uplifting topic.  But here goes.

Most of the time I am very relieved and happy not to be pregnant anymore.  Mainly, of course, now there is Lucy, and people were right when they told me I would soon not be able to recall life without her.  And even though I had a healthy and relatively easy pregnancy as these things go, I was pretty darn uncomfortable toward the end — I became way too acquainted with sleeping on the couch propped up with an assortment of pillows.  I got tired of not being able to see my feet anymore and not being able to put on sneakers without much difficulty.  (At least I don’t live in a cold climate — my sister–in-law had to have my brother-in-law put on her snow boots for her!)  We had an unusually hot fall with 90 degree temps as late as October, so my desire to live in stretch pants and huge sweaters was not fulfilled until very late in the game.

On a superficial note, I was so, so sick of my maternity clothes.  My mom asked me what I was going to do with them, and I immediately replied, “Burn them.”  (Don’t worry, not only did I not burn them, but they are all still hanging in my closet — taking up precious real estate, I might add — because I haven’t had a chance to buy bins to organize and store them.)

But at the same time, I actually felt pretty cute during at least part of my pregnancy.  And even when I felt way too huge and uncomfy to be cute, people still told me that I was a cute pregnant person, which is always good for the spirits!  (People looooove a pregnant woman!  I miss that, too.)

Loving my cute tummy on the beach.

Loving my cute tummy on the beach.

I thought I was mentally prepared for new-mommyhood (or at least, prepared for not being prepared).  As it turns out, there are many things I wasn’t truly prepared for, but a big one was the way my body would change.  I knew it would take a while to get back to normal but I couldn’t bring myself to even imagine that my body might change permanently.  Beyond the effect on my lady parts, which I won’t get into, my figure seems to have done some real shape-shifting.  I guess I’m lucky in that I pretty much only gained weight in my tummy and hips (no double chins or cankles, thank goodness), so I dropped a significant amount of weight post-baby.  But now, I’ve reached a plateau and have come to the harsh realization that I won’t be able to get back to any semblance of “normal” — if at all — without some serious work on my part. As mentioned previously, I am not and have never been a workout girl or someone who watches what I eat, so this all feels pretty daunting.  I’ve also realized that before Lucy,  I think I went around sucking in my stomach 24-7.  During pregnancy I didn’t have to do that (yay!) and so now, I forget (and my stomach muscles forget how, even if I wanted to!).

So, I’m at a weird limbo with my clothes.  The dreaded maternity pants no longer fit, but neither do 99% of my old pants.  I’ve started ordering new jeans in the next size up.  I can’t decide if it’s better to accept that my body’s changed and buy all new clothes now, or to keep the old jeans in my drawer as a carrot to entice me to try to get back to my old shape.  I don’t want to give up, but I also know that I need to learn to love my body the way it is.  I try to look at myself in the mirror — imperfections and all — and tell myself that my body is miraculous. After all, I grew and gave birth to an amazing little person!  And most of all, I don’t want Lucy to ever grow up hearing me complain about my body because I don’t want her to internalize those same insecurities.  But I must admit it’s hard to accept a “normal” post-baby body when I see women (ranging from celebs to my own friends and co-workers) who seem to be able to return their bodies to its former status.

I know I’m not alone in these feelings.  But here is an awesome article that I try to think about when I’m feeling blue about my body.  It made me tear up when I was pregnant, and even more now!

No matter what, I am trying to remember to stay in the picture.

Tags: , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →